Balance

[lsfreak]

From a roleplay perspective, the problem comes with what can be roleplayed. Take a fighter with a -1 Diplomacy modifier but extremely good roleplaying ability, and a bard with a +20 but not so good at the roleplaying. In a diplomatic situation, there are fundamentally one of two things likely to come out: the bard does excellently and the fighter poorly, as their skills reflect, in which case the fighter really might as well be playing Xbox until the diplomacy is over. If the fighter is allowed full reign of his OOC roleplaying abilities in order to get massive bonuses in-character, then the bard is being punished IC for OOC things. Now, of course, there are middle grounds in reality, but the problem comes of where exactly to put those.

The problem is furthered in that spells can replicate everything. Wizards have the roleplaying tools that fighters could only dream of. A fighter is severely limited by their options - 2-4 skill points a level, almost nothing for social skills, no special tricks or ability for out-of-of-combat anything except a few things like wall-breaking and being the party packmule. There's the further issue that these are people whose livelihood are regularly on the line, and so they WILL make themselves the best they can be at their respective roles. Holding back because it's nice and the wizard wants the fighter a chance to shine just isn't going to happen in risky situations.

Really, for roleplay-heavy games, I believe 3.x/4e D&D is lacking.